Gray, 19, was docked 25 points for slamming into the back of fellow rookie Jackson Walls in an incident that ended his own afternoon.
That came after Gray banked the first two top 10 finishes of his young career on Saturday off the back of greatly improved qualifying performances.
Gray noted after Saturday that he was “slowly figuring it out”, having graduated to the main game following a Super2 Series title with Tickford Racing.
“It was a pretty decent start to our weekend. We were just at the back end of the top 10 and finished up with two top 10s as well,” he reflected.
“[Sunday] didn’t really go as planned. We missed it a bit in quali, but we had a pretty good opening lap until it wasn’t.
“Unfortunately our race was done on lap one. But there were a lot of positives to come out of the weekend. We had a big turnaround from Taupo.”
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Gray’s promotion to the Supercars Championship with the category’s oldest team came amid the sudden axing of Will Davison.
DJR had a year earlier passed up Kai Allen – who was subsequently snapped up by Grove Racing – in favour of keeping the veteran.
Gray is 21st in the current standings, seven places lower than Davison was after four rounds last year, and third among the five-strong rookie contingent.
Speaking on Friday at Ruapuna, DJR team manager Tom Moore said the squad is “really happy” with how Gray has settled in.
“Everything he does off the track, you completely forget his age. He speaks and behaves 10 years older than what he is,” said Moore.
“The results on the track, he has a lot of time to grow in the sport and within the team.
“He’s probably entering the category at a very hard time when there’s a few years into a big technical regulation change and everyone is converging as far as the driver ability and the cars and all that sort of thing.
“If he was to come in two or three years ago, in 2023, there was a lot more spread in the field, it was probably a bit easier for a rookie to find his spot.
“But everyone is so dialled at the moment in the driver ability, the car set up, the team operation, it’s a very hard thing to get right when you’re starting from scratch like that.”
Kostecki is second in the standings, five places higher than he was at the same point during his maiden DJR season in 2025.
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